Today at Signal, Twilio’s developer conference, the company announced two new wireless options that aim to expand what is possible for IoT developers. First up is Twilio Super SIM, providing developers with a single SIM card that can operate globally via Twilio’s partnering cellular networks. The second announcement is an enhanced partnership with T-Mobile, which introduces a new developer platform for Narrowband IoT, and an accompanying development kit.

Twilio Super SIM Streamlines International IoT Deployment

Twilio Super SIM allows for the development of IoT devices that are intended to be deployed across the globe, without the need for separate configurations based on location. With a single SIM card, devices can manually or automatically connect to partner networks, optimized for performance or price. This allows a single API to connect and manage devices across networks and regions.

Img Credit: Twilio.com

Twilio also announced an expanded set of carrier relationships to bolster this effort, carriers include Singtel, Telefonica, and Three Group. Super SIM is currently in private preview, and is expected to be released in private beta in spring 2019.

Twilio Narrowband Provides Dev Platform for Low-Bandwidth Connections

T-Mobile’s Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) service is a technology that is designed to provide IoT devices with a wireless connection that is cost effective and energy conscious. Narrowband is made possible by utilizing a frequency range that previously served as a buffer. T-mobile explained this to ZDNet by saying:

We've got multiple blocks of spectrum that we've attributed to LTE, and what narrowband gives us the capability of doing is utilising those guard bands that live between the bands that we own to deploy this technology, so effectively it's utilising ... spectrum that otherwise would not be utilised.

With this partnership, Twilio has announced a developer platform for NB-IoT, as well as an accompanying SDK and dev kit. The developer kit includes, “an Arduino-based development board and Grove sensors specifically chosen for innovative low-powered wide-area solutions. It also features the u-blox LTE Cat NB1 SARA‑N410 hardware module, certified for the T-Mobile Narrowband network.” The Twilio Breakout SDK aims to help developers with network registration and communication between devices and cloud services based on the network capability requirements.